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Bellossom's claws were much more convenient for moving quickly than her more normal set of limbs. It made a quick dodge out of the way of her opponent's attacks much easier. Although currently with the downside that she needed to dodge much more than before in order to keep her Jade safe from attacks.

The Ursaring she was up against was strong, and bulky, but had clearly not been prepared for her to be able to scamper out of his way. Unfortunately he was prepared for the shocks and leaves she could send at him while she dodged. It was only a matter of time before a more solid hit broke the gold and made her have to use the Fire type instead.

"Try and go for draining moves," Alexa suggested in a rumble, and Bellossom kept one eye on Leader Whitney to confirm a suspicion.

"Whitney can understand," she quickly told her trainer and scrambled out of the way of another claw swipe that brought the bear close enough to possibly use such a move, but definitely would get her hit hard. "I have an idea." If Bellossom could get it to work. Charizard had tried to teach her something that would drastically improve her ability to fight, but it was a very off-type move, and not even for a type she really used.

She built up a liquid energy in the back of her throat. If this didn't work then her backup at this point was probably to tear off the Jade herself and just get it fixed later. With a probably too telegraphed motion she spat a large ball of glowing water, that splashed over the bear and changed his fur to a blue color and added webbing between his claws.

"Soak," the Ursaring complained at his wet, but made to be wet, fur. "You of all pokemon know Soak?" Then the bear blinked at the sparks playing across her leaves and flowers. "Wait, wait, you know Soak!"

Rhydon had a toxic core to his topiary form, and a plan of using his lessons with Goodra to outlast whatever typically bulky pokemon of the Normal type he ended up against. He was as a result quite happy to see the Kangaskhan across from him on the arena floor quite deliberately set her child down in the trainer section before they could start.

"Hmph, did you have to be Poison typed?" she complained with a huff.

"Well, no, but it seemed like the best option," he answered. "My Grass type form isn't as good about big hits yet."

"You... didn't. You did not have to be Poison typed?" Kangaskhan questioned slowly as Whitney finally got the baby settled.

"Start with stomp," Whitney cut the conversation off but, as Bellossom had noted earlier, the Gym Leader had clearly been able to follow it.

"Toxin then stay safe," Alexa ordered to confirm they were still going with the same plan. Rhydon made sure the glob of toxin he spat at Kangaskhan wasn't transformative, and easily hit his target.

Unfortunately his opponent also easily hit him, but while it did make one of his limb-branches creek it didn't hurt too badly. He had enough time before the followup strike to let his body move much more freely, and a quick series of motions allowed him to almost-flow out from under the Normal type.

Staying fluid in motion wasn't too hard, but the fact that there was still a solid part to his body meant it wasn't quite as effective. As a result Rhydon was quite battered himself by the time Kangaskhan was out of the match.

Heracross took wing immediately, and smirked at the annoyed Pidgeotto that clearly had expected a Bug type, or perhaps even just a regular Fighting type. Although the match up still wasn't really in his favor either.

"Try Mercury Contagion," Alexa suggested, while he missed Whitney's own order that sent Pidgeotto after him. Heracross spat some liquid metal onto the bird just before they raked their talons across his back.

There was a squawk of confusion behind him as he recovered with a couple of strong flaps, and then spun around to properly hit some Fighting type strikes against the now more vulnerable bird pokemon.

Pidgeotto now had a notably weighty coating of liquid metal on their feathers, and seemed to realize the situation quickly. "Fighting types," the bird complained. "Always trying to get around a good pair of wings."

"Well, at least I'm trying out having a pair," Heracross replied and flung himself forward into a strong kick while his opponent was still clearly getting a handle on how their flight had changed. "That- Crap, you okay?" he reacted as Pidgeotto fell out of the air from the strike. He quickly flapped after and caught the bird.

"Uh, maybe," the dazed bird replied, and then vanished as they were recalled.

"I'm still up for another fight," Heracross complained. He didn't think he had hit that hard, but it was always hard to tell how things worked out when you changed an opponent's types around.

"Heracross is staying out," Alexa informed the Gym Leader.

"If he's sure," Whitney declared, and then sent out a Miltank. Heracross had a plan for this pokemon, he thought as the cow pokemon immediately curled into a ball, and it would hopefully save him from a powerful Rock typed attack. His Fighting type partially countered the Flying type weakness, but from his time as part Bug he knew it was still a viable counter to him.

"Stay at range," Alexa ordered. "She can only jump so far in the air." The meaning was more that there was a limit to where Miltank could get in any single arc rather than that high enough was a safe place in general to fly, but Heracross could work with it.

Heracross made sure to send a dense cloud of dust at Miltank for the first arc, but the Normal type angled her path around it in mid air. "Careful, Sand Attack is still dangerous to Rollout," Whitney instructed her pokemon, and Heracross smiled at that. If it was Sand Attack that might have been useful advice.

Heracross had not actually done any damage before the third cloud caught Miltank. "Who said I was using Sand Attack?" he asked as Miltank suddenly went from hide to chitin. It was an interesting change, with the pokemon staying pink and black, but her body changing into a large beetle as the plates of a Bug type formed to make up her surface. The Miltank's overall shape had not changed very much at all, but still enough to knock her out of Rollout in a flailing of now mobile back-shell pieces that possibly had some vaguely usable wings.

"Now I think I can handle you from the air better," Heracross joked as both Gym Leader and Miltank appeared to need a moment to process what had happened.

The next day Alexa, now a Mephagic, had the entire private phone call room to herself. Her team could come out if really needed, except for Charizard. Her Starter was in another private room to have the first voiced conversation of his life with his human parents thanks to the translator.

"Alexa, good to finally see you again," her father laughed as the call connected. Professor Larch was currently human, which Alexa was honestly glad to see, but her mother appeared to be a Vespikiln again.

"Hi dad, hi mom," Alexa started. "Vespikiln again?" she had to ask.

"It turns out that we were not as careful as we thought with cleaning up bedding. I got home and tried to do laundry and ended up like this," her mother complained. "Thank Maizie again for us. That discovery about pokeballs for these forms has helped a whole lot."

"I can manage that, I'm fairly sure she wants me to call again," Alexa agreed easily and tried to work out what to cover next. "Did you get everything I sent from Celebi?"

"You mean the massive pile of rare fruit? Including two different examples of something that gives pokemon the Dragon type? Well one that gives the type but makes you sick if you eat another, and one that only gives the type with a bit more work," her father laughed. "Yes, we got all of that and your new Contagion too. I've ran the test on that last one that you asked for already, and I think I've found a magical sensor upgrade module for your Pokedex that will let you test those metaphysical properties yourself. You should get it soon if you stay in Goldenrod a few more days, and you can compare to my own results."

Alexa breathed a sigh of relief at that. "Good, I want to be able to at least verify that what we come up with isn't immediately permanent," she admitted. "It didn't seem likely for that one, but I had been looking at the plants I could identify and some of them worried me with how they fell into that category. 'Cannonball Coconut' sounded like it could be a problem if it tasted good enough."

"It is honestly hard enough for a pokemon to eat enough of one of those to get the Steel type, let alone making it permanent, but I understand the concern," her father clarified. "There were some interesting ones in that group. The 'Sharp Bamboo' is one of the fairly rare Fighting type options I've been looking for, and there was a 'Frozen Pinecone' for the Ice type you asked about among them too."

"Yeah, I hope that you will be able to grow more of them," Alexa said. "Celebi didn't give me too many of any of them, so I didn't want to use them up myself. That's why I got some Rime Dust for the Ice type instead." She kind of wanted to get started on that soon, but without an upcoming Gym match it would be harder to book a training field for it. "Oh, what happened during your tests of Vipercury that delayed things?"

"Well, we actually didn't get a chance to test anything," her mother laughed. "We started asking around for a good place to ask for volunteers, and then Viridian Gym calls us up. Apparently Leader Oak had been looking for any information at all on Vipercury for months."

"Leader Gary Oak went on an expedition that found a temple over the break between Leagues," her father continued. "And there he found out the hard way it was for a Mercurial Ninetails. It seems we nearly didn't have a Viridian Gym this year because he had been stuck as a Vipercury himself for months."

"Months?" Alexa had to ask, outright confused. The issue with that form where you made more of what changed you was the same as for Vespikiln, and she had managed that one on her own easily enough. "How?"

"He didn't know what caused the change, and it isn't like he developed his own move just to restore pokemon to their original form," her mother teased her. "He didn't grab a tail, but he also didn't know why he was changed other than some insults from the Ninetails, who we think also did not actually know why she could change some humans."

"Leader Oak had tried quite a few curse breaking methods, but had been too careful about keeping the liquid metal he made while sleeping safely away from other people," her father specified. "The Ninetails said that sleeping along with others would spread the curse, but didn't say anything about the metal being the cause. He had been cleaning it up somewhat himself, but not carefully enough because he only focused on not letting anyone else touch the somewhat toxic metal. Apparently the rest of the expedition group was not effected by the Contagion."

"Wait, was this before or after we accidentally made another Mercurial Ninetails?" Alexa questioned, now that she considered the timeline. "I thought that he had those expeditions early in the break so there was more time to go over what they find."

"A while before then," her father answered. "I did get a request about that change, but the focus was on if the newly evolved pokemon could cast any special 'curses' on people, and, well, we didn't exactly think of the Contagion like that."

"So, I taught some of his pokemon Contagion Cure, and he maybe hinted that it seemed like the kind of move that a Legendary pokemon teaches others," her mother admitted. "So, we might have said that Charizard isn't quite a normal Charizard."

"Celebi told us that my entire team counts, me included of course," Alexa replied with a cringe. "So that isn't exactly wrong."

"Your entire team?" Professor Larch asked, and it was a Professor question rather than a dad one from the tone. "Did she explain why?"

"We learned things that most pokemon don't," Alexa answered, perhaps a bit vaguely. "We also might have asked for some lessons about more of those things." It took her a moment to realize she had answered as a Legendary pokemon instead of a daughter.

Her mother laughed at the exchange. "Well, I see you two will be able to handle professional interaction now that you've grown up, Alexa," Alexandria Larch joked. "Although I really did not expect my daughter to end up with 'Legendary Pokemon' as a job." The Vespikiln collected herself at their twin glares over how it was not that funny. "Maybe we should move onto another topic, how did your latest Gym match go?"

"The last one went well," Alexa latched onto the change in topic that also avoided the Gym match she did not want to talk about. "Bellossom was able to use her Chlorophyll Jade without getting it broken, which is a good sign. Rhydon went for Poison/Grass to try out Acid Armor a bit because of a suggestion by William's Goodra, but it didn't really work out that differently from normal yet. Heracross had a good time with Fighting/Flying, and even took down two of Leader Whitney's team."

"Has Bellossom been able to include the Jade in with her defensive energy?" Move Tutor Alexandria Larch asked, but that at least was an easier to handle job title. "Because while that is hard for most pokemon, if she is Legendary too then it should be easier for her." Alexa reconsidered her thought about how that was a better job title. "That kind of extra energy is easier for them, kind of like how... Alexander, has our daughter always been able to infuse stuff better than most people." It was not really a question.

"I have no idea, there are not in fact research papers on human energy infusion beyond what clothing makers produce, and those don't cover the more exotic stuff that has to worry about that," her father immediately answered. "She could more than we can, but I don't know if that has increased further now that she is properly a Legendary."

"Not sure I want to test that," Alexa admitted. "But I do know that sort of thing applies to the main pokeball I have."

"Huh, well back to my first question, can Bellossom do it with the Jade?" her mother questioned.

"We think so from how it held up in training, but I worked with her mostly on keeping it from getting hit instead," Alexa more easily answered. "It did manage to hold up to glancing hits better than I expected."

"That's great then," her father said then changed topic. "How much experience do you have with Acid Armor? I know you went up against Josh's Vaporeon quite a bit, but it is usually a rare move."

"Well, I can only manage as a Lobasalt myself," Alexa started off thoughtfully. "It isn't too hard in that form, but I set really quickly like that." A clicking 'giggle' from her mother made Alexa realize he meant for her team. "Charizard and Bellossom both have been really fluid before, with Mercury Contagion forms that use it by default like a Muk. Mostly it has been Rhydon using something like it to keep mobile in a way that reduces physical damage."

"You've managed Acid Armor yourself with that one?" her mother said just as thoughtfully. "I've had requests for help with that move before, it is very rare and experts are quite valuable. I might have to try some more if it can help with that."

"The Contagion substances as a whole seem to provide something close to that ability fairly often," her father suggested. "We might want to see if the new Contagion is a good one to use."

"I'm still planning on making an Ice typed one before going over the Earthen Contagion," Alexa pointed out. "Or at least a good attempt, Charizard says it was harder than it looked to make Magma Contagion but I am hoping that we might be able to work out the baseline that makes them work in general."

"Well, it sounds like a good side project, but don't forget to work on your combat skills too," her mother laughed and buzzed up a small shimmer of heat. "Don't get so lost in changing that you miss out on practicing good ones. Like how Heracross apparently found one of those to win against two other pokemon?"

"He likes the combat ability of his Stable Cloud form," Alexa admitted. "Although it is one of the ones that is a bit more tricky to time. He likes Fighting too much to have easy options to make that one longer, so he's working out what he wants to keep up training with. It worked for the Gym before too," she added before she remembered that she did not want to talk about that one.

Charizard was in his natural form for this. Alone in the room, because he was not about to explain anything about his hone life to anyone who didn't need to know it. "Right, they should have the phone clear today for this," he stalled for a moment before he finally gave in and made the call.

"Hello? Oh, Charles! Dear, Charles is on the phone!" his human mother answers, and Charizard can only sigh at both the name and the shuffle to get his human father there too, soon followed by his Charizard mother.

"Water-Son," his bio-mom said, and he remembered that there were in fact worse name options available to him. "Did you really gain that type truly?"

Charizard took this chance to drink from the bottle of altered water he brought just for that question. With a long drink he lost the Flying type and gained Water, along with a shift from wings to fins and a green flame. He also had vials of both Contagions on hand just in case they wanted to see them too. "Yeah, it works pretty well," he answered, and as expected his bio-mom just nodded in response, then the translator repeats his words and all of his parents on the other side paused. "So, where did 'Charles' come from?" he then asked now that his parents were aware that all of them could understand his speech.

"I still think it is cute," his bio-mom of all people replied. "You should be able to go back to the original last name. 'Charles Zard' is much better than 'Charles Larch'."

Charizard blinked at that. "Charles what?" Charizard demanded quietly and firmly. "You named a Charmander 'Charles Zard'?" he specified so his translator could inform his human parents.

"We actually name all of you like that," his human mom answered smiling widely. "Your mother is 'Cindy Zard' for example."

"And your father 'Chuck Zard'," his human dad added with mirth. "Not to mention all of your brothers and sisters."

"This is not what I expected to share with my trainer," Charizard complained quietly as his human father went over the entire list. Although apparently not quiet enough to avoid the translator telling everyone he said it.

Alexa was not sure how her father had managed to convince her mother not to burn down the Azalea Town Gym. Especially since he seemed to be in the mood to make former Leader Bugsy into a test subject for some of the more permanent options effects on humans. She in fact really hoped that she misheard him about how "Wisp's Breath needs a long term trial".

"Anyway, I'm using the League Badge, so I just need the last half of the League now," Alexa tried to change the topic. "That is the harder half, but I think it will also be where we can use things very well with a bit more work. I'm really hoping to make use of a few types I want to develop stuff for. Not to mention the Legendary stuff I need to work out what to do about."

"Legendary stuff you aren't officially telling us," her mother insisted. "Because there is a lot of paperwork about official Legendary pokemon, and some of it will cause you problems for a League."

"Possibly worse ones this year," her father added. "Leader Oak noted that the League asked him to try being a pokemon for the duration of the next League, publicly. I know you've decided to try that, but it is a bit much to be asking everyone."

"Yeah, William and Charizard are trying that out for this city, but I doubt we are going to stick with it," Alexa informed them. It was sort of working out, but getting around was a lot more annoying without someone who looked human in the group.

"So Charizard is being the trainer while you hide in a pokeball?" her mother teased.

"Charizard is being a trainer while I hide in a pokeball," Alexa unapologetically agreed. "But seriously, it has been alright. Only a couple of times where I actually did that, which given how Celadon would have gone if I had the option is an improvement."

"Didn't Charizard mysteriously manage to 'find' a bunch of things you weren't up for getting?" her father questioned.

"He is quite lucky I didn't know he could read and write back then," she agreed again.

[Author's Note]
Thank you to XNerd2 on Sufficient Velocity and UnderseaWings on Spacebattles for the two Dragon typed fruit ideas. The fact I got two of those made it seem like an interesting thing to put in first.
XNerd2 is also responsible for the Cannonball Coconut.
zagan on Sufficient Velocity was responsible for the Sharp Bamboo and Frozen Pinecone.